Overwatch PTR Now Available – January 5, 2017

Please note that the below patch notes only include changes currently available for testing on the PTR. While many of these changes will also be available on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in a future patch, the PTR is PC-only and therefore will only reflect changes coming specifically to that platform.

GENERAL UPDATES

General

Emote Wheel

Players can now equip up to 4 emotes, sprays, and voice lines from within the hero gallery

Voice line and emote submenus can be accessed using the left and right mouse buttons from within the Communication wheel

Players can now bind individual sprays, emotes, and voice lines to unique keys or mouse buttons

HERO BALANCE UPDATES

Ana

Biotic Grenade

Healing boost on allies has been decreased by 50%

Developer Comments: The healing boost from Ana’s Biotic Grenade was providing too much healing, especially when used on targets with large health pools.

D.Va

Health increased from 200 to 400

Armor decreased from 400 to 200

Fusion Cannons

Bullet damage decreased from 3 to 2

Number of bullets per shot has been increased from 8 to 11

Developer Comments: D.Va’s armor often made her feel like she had no weaknesses, even against heroes that are often effective against bigger targets (like Reaper). The changes to her Fusion Cannons will result in a small overall decrease in damage, but they should feel more consistent now.

Roadhog

Chain Hook

Targets are now pulled directly in front of Roadhog (rather than straight to him), except in cases where Roadhog drastically rotates

Hooked targets are now released if they leave Roadhog’s line-of-sight before being pulled

Line-of-sight checks (which detect if targets should be initially hit by the hook) are now done from Roadhog’s position, rather than the hook’s position

Developer Comments: The hook should now feel more consistent for Roadhog players, but it should also feel more reasonable to his enemies, as they cannot be hooked or pulled around corners anymore.

Sombra

Hack

The time it takes to hack a target has been decreased from 1 second to 0.8 seconds

Developer Comments: Sombra often had difficulty hacking enemies, even when she surprised the target. This change should help her execute hacks more easily.

USER INTERFACE UPDATES

The “Stay as Team” button lights up when anyone on your team clicks it

Kill Feed

Hero ability icons are now displayed

Ultimate abilities are now indicated with an orange arrow

Headshot eliminations are now indicated with a red icon

BUG FIXES

General

Fixed a bug that allowed spectators to click the “Stay as Team” button after a game ended

Fixed a bug that caused the “Stay as Team” button to overlap with the “Back” button on the Social menu

Fixed a bug causing the “Mouse 4” button to execute the “Back” function during menu navigation, preventing it from being used for other features

Fixed a bug preventing the Social menu from correctly displaying World of Warcraft zones that have a single quotation mark in the name

Fixed a bug causing heroes to display a “T-pose” on the victory screen following a Mystery Heroes brawl

AI

Fixed a bug that prevented the Roadhog bot from grabbing enemies with his Chain Hook through a friendly Reinhardt’s Barrier Field

Fixed a bug that allowed the Sombra bot to hack through barriers

Fixed a bug that made the Torbjörn bot unresponsive after placing his turret

Competitive Play

Fixed a bug preventing players from receiving experience points when playing offseason games

Heroes

Fixed a bug that would cause the cup in Ana’s “Toast” victory pose to appear blurry on the right side of the screen